For Her
by generalsleepy
Summary: Just One of the Girls. Kurt/Chris. Based on an alternate interpretation of the movie where Chris is actually transgender.


You wish you could make it easy for her. You try. You try so hard. But, in the end, there's really nothing you can do.

And it kills you. But you know anything you feel is nothing compared to how she does.

And the thing of it is, everything is going fantastic in other ways. You've made a clean break, both of you. Chrissy is going to a new school where no one knows who she- not who she is. Not who she was. Who she wasn't. She didn't expect you to transfer with her. That's one thing you'll stand by: she underestimates all the time how much you would give for her, how much you would do for her. You'd move mountains.

Not a fucking joke. If taking a pickax and a shovel and breaking down a mountain and moving it ten feet to the left would give Chrissy the life and the body she deserved, you'd start digging with your bare hands before they handed you the tools.

As much as they try to keep things under wraps, as much as you and Mom and Marie and Mrs. Caufer and Julie worked their damndest to keep Chrissy's life to herself, sometimes there were leaks. Even on the other side of the county, some dumbfuck would say something like, "Hey, isn't that that fag from Bentley High who pretended to be a girl for a semester?" The moment word gets to you, you can spring into action. You dig up the skills and the attitude that you'd grown out of, and you make it clear to the asshole that he is never going to say anything like that about your girl or you are going to destroy him so bad his mother wouldn't recognize him, and if she did, she wouldn't want him anymore. You've discovered you're a pretty good actor. Kurt the big bad Marlon Brando thug is a role, and you're damn good at it.

Because they're one thing that's real. No one messes with Kurt's girl. No. one. Never again.

(Julie and Marie take care of the girls. The number they pulled on that- Julie's words-"moldy douche" Lynn was a thing of beauty. Anyway, stuffing the ballot box for homecoming queen vote seemed like something she, the former captain, would do, even if they hadn't arranged it to look like it.).

That's what you can do that's tangible. She's grateful, and you feel like Superman every time you're able to do something to help her. But then, she's trying on a new dress and it's made to fit on curves that aren't there. You catch her looking at herself in the mirror. It's a split second, but you know it hurts her. Sometimes when she's shaving her legs, face, or chest. Sometimes when she catches sight of another girl naked.

When you're in bed. It can be fine, and you're so happy she's fine and you'll do whatever you can in those moments to make this valuable time great for her. And sometimes, it just hits her and she just stops and goes silent, hugging herself and staring at nothing. You wait. You stroke her back softly and murmur that she's beautiful and that you love her. You love her so much, and you'll always love her. She's the one.

You don't know whether it eventually works, or if she comes out of it on her own , and while she was there she couldn't absorb anything you said. So you keep saying the truth. You know you can't force it into her head, as much as you wish to Hell you could, but you can keep saying until she's ready to hear it.

"I had a friend who got glasses," she explains one day, late at night, when her mother-her wonderful, perfect lovely, and you can tell where Chrissy get's it from-mother, has arranged for them to be alone together. You're lying in the tub full of hot water. She sits on the edge of the tub, shaving her legs, dunking the razor in the bathwater at the end of each stroke. You can't begin to fathom why this is exactly what you want to do this night. No, you actually can. You want to spend forever with Chrissy. This feels like what forever will really be. You can't wait for it.

"He always had trouble seeing the board and stuff. Like, he'd always try and sit near the front, and you'd ask him to tell the time on the clock across the room and he'd be like hours off. Then he gets these crazy-huge like something out of Star Wars glasses, and he's just going crazy about the fact that he can see the world and freaking out about the fact that trees have leaves or something. Then, next semester, he breaks them, and he has to go without glasses for a week. And suddenly, he's freaking blind. Worse than before he had them. Like he can't even see the board in the front row, he keeps not being able to recognize people in the hall until they're right in front of him."

You nod. You think you know where she's going, but you're not sure. You always feel slow in front of her, in front of anyone smart. No. She's always telling you to stop talking to yourself like that. She thinks you're smart, she says it doesn't matter what it looks like. She's seen you, and she says knows you can do stuff that you don't think you can at first. And you doesn't know how it happens, but you believe her. You believe her and your shoulders get a bit lighter.

"It's like, when things are tough, you learn how to make do, you know? Work with what you've got, even if it sucks. You can get so good at it that you don't recognize anything's not normal. Then, something comes along where..." She gestured with the razor looking for words. She's finished with the right leg and eases it into the back. You can't help yourself but stroke the smooth skin. You feel her toes against your thigh and you smile. She smiles back and it gets wider as she continues, "You get a chance. Something takes away what's been holding you back. You get to be... who you really are. You can see clearly without squinting. You don't have to ignore how fake you feel when you look into a mirror. And you realize how easy things can be."

The smile fades. "Then it wears off, or you go back to where you were, and you can't fake it anymore. You're out of practice, you don't know how you made it before. And it's like someone took away your waterwings and you're in the deep end."

Your mouth opens but you don't know what to say. You can get the analogy, but you can't ever really understand what she's going through. You can't understand how hard the situation she fell back into was.

"I'll be your waterwings, babe."

It has to be one of the stupidest things you've ever said. You think she's just going to stare at you in disbelief. Instead, she laughs so hard she falls into the tub. Water splashes, you're both laughing, and you love to feel her body against yours, the body you love, but you hate for the parts that cause her pain. The pills they've finally-fucking finally, after a year of waiting-put her on, are starting to make her body fall into line. Curves are growing and shifting, thinner waist, larger hips, she can wear a bra without padding. (If she wanted to: she always says she's not going to settle for "mosquito bites"). Her face hasn't changed much, as the doctor said it might. There wasn't much left to "feminize" of that face. You knew that the moment you laid eyes on the girl of your dreams walking up the school steps.

You only care about any of how Chrissy looks because of how it makes her feel. That's all that matters to you. It's always been Chrissy inside that body. Chrissy has always been a woman. It's always been, and always will be a woman's body. And you'll always love every inch of it that makes her happy.

"Chris! What the hell? You used my razor again."

You wish you could take on this burden for her. Sometimes, when your mind is on a crazy wander, you wish that you could make some crazy trade, so that you were the one born in the wrong body and not Chrissy. Seeing someone you love that much in pain, you'd do anything to take that away.

But, you can't make that trade. There's only so much that you can do. And slowly, begrudgingly, you're learning to accept that. All you can do is be there. Always be there.

Her friend Yazmin wanted all of their group to go to the Halloween Party as fairies. She picked out matching outfits in all of their sizes.

The skirt is tight. Her hips can almost fit it, but other things can't. You wait in the other room as she tries and tries to force her traitor body into the right shape but it's not working and she can't get it right and it hurts, you can tell it hurts. You go into the room and she's sitting on the bed, with a loose dress thrown on. There are tears in here eyes and you can tell not just from her hurting herself physically.

You sit down beside her. She looks at you and you can see the look of shame, disappointment, failure. And that dark hint of disgust. She blinks, her mascara starting to smudge. She shuts her eyes and hangs her head.

"I-" Her voice is high and tight. That's all that she can manage.

You put one arm around her waist and wrap the other over her chest. You press her head into crook of your neck and rest your cheek against her. For a moment you just share each other's breaths, hers beginning to slow.

"I love you," you say. You softly kiss her perfect cheek. "You're the one." You pause, looking for something encouraging to say. "Fuck fairies," you settle on.

You move your hand from her waist to circle her wrist. You raise her hand, balled into a fist on her lap, and it falls open. You stroke your thumb along her knuckles and smile against her skin.

"Your nails look great."


End file.
